


Different Circumstances

by finefeatheredfriend



Series: Why Can't We Be Friends? (AKA Wholesome Shorts) [7]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Angels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Daughter Relationship, Nightmares, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, it was all a dream trope, starts scary ends fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 23:50:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finefeatheredfriend/pseuds/finefeatheredfriend
Summary: Earl struggles with what had happened to him in the Bliss while on an expedition with Rook. Rook reveals something to him.





	Different Circumstances

**Author's Note:**

> I'm including this in the Wholesome Shorts series because it's that universe, but strictly speaking the entire work isn't completely wholesome, but it gets there in the end. 
> 
> Art for this piece coming soon.
> 
> For anyone worried about it going in this direction, I do NOT ship Whitehorse/Rook in any way shape or form and I never will. Whitehorse is her (adoptive) dad.

Earl needed a cigarette. Badly.

He followed Rook across the grassy hill at a slow lope, his knees complaining. His heart raced and he swallowed, feeling his throat go scratchy as he looked over the field of flowers they were near. His hands were shaking. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he could barely stand to think of the Bliss fields, let alone be near them. He couldn’t tell her that he was terrified of going close to them again, that he was deeply afraid that any time spent near those flowers would be his last as a cognizant human being. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had been ridden with nightmares every time he’d slept since Virgil and Tracey had found him stumbling through one of these fields, drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. He felt disgust and shame at himself when he thought of it.

“Sheriff? You okay?” Turning to look at her, Earl holstered his pistol so she couldn’t see his hands trembling.

“I’m fine, Rook,” he told her in a low rumble, but his voice was shaking too. She frowned a little and reached out a hand, touching him gently on his upper arm.

“You didn’t have to come with me for this.”

“Yes, I did,” he insisted. “With Sharky temporarily out of commission, and Grace and Jess working recognizance in the Holland Valley, I couldn’t let you go out on your own in good conscience, Rook. Now, quit jawjacking and lead the way,” he grumbled, pulling his arm away from her touch, though he wanted nothing more than another comforting hug from her like the one she had given him several weeks ago.

He couldn’t show weakness in front of her.

Rook needed him to be strong, and by God, he would be if it killed him. She opened her mouth as if to argue with him, but finally shut it with a click of her teeth. He saw her jaw tick. She looked out at the field of white flowers waving gently in the breeze and took a deep breath. Earl could smell them from here, that acrid gardenia and vanilla odor mixed with something chemical that burned in his nostrils. Unbidden and absolutely unwelcome, he felt tears pricking in his eyes. With a low snarl, he whipped his glasses off and yanked his handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing at his eyes roughly and biting back a fearful sob that tried to well up and out of his chest. It was fine. Everything was fine. They’d be in, out, done. He’d have a beer or two or ten tonight at the jail and try to sleep all the way through the night without any nightmares disturbing his sleep and everything. would. be. fine.

“Allergies bothering you?” Rook asked, but he knew from her tone what she was actually asking him. She knew. She always did. The kid had good instincts. He met her eyes and felt hot shame tear through him.

“I’m fine,” he said again, meeting her gaze levelly. “Let’s get this over with.”

Without another word, Rook stepped forward, hopping lightly over the fence and into the field, wobbling a little as the flowers’ effect hit her. Swallowing hard, Earl followed, a little slower and with a grunt when he landed on his feet, wincing as a shock of pain ran up his spine. What he wouldn’t give to be young and spry again, he thought to himself with chagrin.

And then the Bliss hit him, that initial terror as voices and music arose from nowhere. The edges of his vision went blurry, multiplied in reds and greens. He threw a hand out to grab one of the fence posts and instead grabbed Rook’s shoulder. She met his gaze unsteadily, but her eyes were earnest.

“If it’s too much…”

“Just get to work, kid,” he ground out as the unpleasant sensation was replaced with that disorienting euphoria. She nodded and turned away from him, sneaking up behind their prey – the fields were laced with dozens of Angels and the damn things kept coming to the jail, a constant menace that needed to be dealt with, and quietly. Too much noise and the two of them would have to fight with all the Angels at once. Rook jammed her hunting knife into the place where neck met head and the Angel dropped with a little grunt that sent a shiver up Earl’s spine.

In different circumstances, that might have been him.

Earl stepped forward, holding up his pistol and screwing the suppressor in place as he drug himself forward through the Bliss haze and approached another Angel.

“Are you scared, Sheriff?” He heard the _thupthupthupthupthup_ of the helicopter rotors. The angel took a step toward him. He blinked.

“Relax, Sheriff. You’re gonna get your name in the paper.” He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and jerked back, shaking himself. He raised his pistol, taking a deep breath and then staggered.

“You see they’ve come for me.” A glint of blue eye through yellow glasses, wooden floors squeaking under his boots. He shuffled his feet in the soft sand of the Bliss field and aimed.

“Do not touch that service weapon!” he yelled, throwing out an arm. The church flickered in his vision and the angel was closer, closer, closer, staggering toward him with a snarl. More heads turned toward him, growling.

“Sheriff, what the fuck?!” Rook whispered, her eyes panicked as the horde turned toward them. He tried to shake himself, tried to reconcile reality, but it kept flickering away from him like sand through an hourglass.

“Aaaamazing grace…how sweet the sound that saved a wretch…like me…I told you God wouldn’t let you take me,” Earl heard and he stumbled back, throat closing in terror. He shot wildly and hit his target in the shoulder. It screeched, drawing even more attention to them. Like something from a horror movie, the Angels all turned and started for them, growling and groaning, arms and garden tools outstretched threateningly.

“Sheriff! Earl, pull it together,” Rook urged.

“We gotta get outta here,” Earl said, repeating his own words from several weeks before, feeling the nausea again, feeling his seatbelt sinking into his belly as he hung upside down in the crashed chopper. “We gotta get outta here!”

“SHIT!” Earl heard next to him and he felt someone grab his arm. He yanked roughly away, feeling hands grabbing at his ankles, feeling himself yanked out of the chopper, feeling the ends of his fingernails ripping off deep into the quick as he scrabbled and grabbed at the helicopter’s frame, desperate not to be taken by the cult. Flashes and waves of memories, horrifying, sanity-breaking memories, tore through Earl’s mind as he fell backwards, firing again as a dozen Angels bore down on him. Rook shot several of the closest ones, yanked him up with a hiss of effort. “I am not leaving you behind. Come on, Sheriff.”

“I don’t have much time, Rook,” he heard himself say and he had no idea if he was saying it now, or if this is just another awful memory.

“Earl, come on, please,” she begged him, trying to tug him out of the infested field, trying to get him to safety. She stopped pulling long enough to dispatch a few Angels. The horde cornered them against the fence and Rook screamed expletives as she shot them down. She swapped to her baseball bat, seeing that they are surrounded, that there is no way to escape that wouldn’t involve leaving Earl behind. She gave a cry of fury as she shattered an Angel’s skull.

Earl panted hard and it only made things worse, that sickly sweet chemical smell overwhelming his senses with simultaneous euphoria and dread.

As real as though it was happening now and not weeks before, Earl felt a hard hand fisted in his hair, forcing his face into the bucket of liquid Bliss. They had used it to tame him, to make him lose his mind so that he would do nothing more than wander in the field of flowers, absent and half-mad. He choked, trying to draw in air, but only managed to pull in more Bliss. Fear was replaced with pleasure and he stopped fighting it, thought that if he had to die, at least this would be painless. They pushed him out of the back of a van and cut his bonds, leaving him in the field, eyes glazed, mouth slack.

Earl wandered deeper into the Bliss field, arms slack at his sides, back hunched in defeat. His mind went blank and he embraced the escape from this garbled reality.

Footsteps approached. Rook, with a hunting knife in her hand. He felt the slick slide of cold metal between his head and his neck and had a moment of pure clarity. _Different circumstances_ , he realized belatedly as his legs went out from under him. Rook caught him under the armpits and pulled him into her lap, crying as he tried to draw in a last breath.

Earl awoke with a gasp, drenched in sweat, tears pouring from his eyes. He sat up and covered his face with his hands, weeping into them, both in relief and in fear. Relief that the dream was over. Fear that maybe _this_ part was the dream.

There was a soft knock at the doorway. A tired looking Rook was standing there, her features a study of concern. He watched her with bloodshot eyes, too exhausted to hide that he was crying. Wordless, she sat on the bed beside him and pulled him into a tight hug.

“I had a bad dream too,” she confessed. “Mind if I put my sleeping bag in here for the night?” He nodded, not trusting his voice not to break if he spoke.

Rook grabbed her bedroll and unfolded it next to his cot, sliding into it with a little sigh. He laid back, his arm hanging over the edge of the cot. She held his hand until they both drifted back off to a peaceful, and thankfully dreamless sleep.


End file.
